


Five Uses for a Sonic Modulator

by Prochytes



Category: Doctor Who, Dollhouse, Primeval, Torchwood, Warehouse 13
Genre: Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-03
Updated: 2011-06-03
Packaged: 2017-10-20 01:56:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/207560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Prochytes/pseuds/Prochytes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What echoes might Tosh’s sonic modulator have produced?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Uses for a Sonic Modulator

**Author's Note:**

> Significant spoilers for Torchwood 2x12 “Fragments” and Dollhouse 1x13 “Epitaph One”. Small ones for Warehouse 13 1x04 “Claudia” and Primeval 1x06. Originally posted on LJ in 2009.

1\. South Dakota (2009).

 

“‘The Sato Modulator’,” Claudia read aloud off the display, “‘Acquired: 2004.’” Her brow wrinkled. “Kinda modern for this museum, isn’t it?”

 

“Everything in the Warehouse was ‘modern’ once, Claudia. There was a time when just a cutting edge was cutting-edge. And new artefacts come into being all the time.” Artie frowned. “When I’m playing ball outside, I sometimes think I can hear the banging and the sawing as someone builds the next Trojan Horse.”

 

“Whoa. Is thatwhat the huge wooden statue in Sector Twelve is? Sick. I’d assumed it was just an idol of the devil-god that My Little Ponies pray to.”

 

“You’re procrastinating.”

 

“I know. But I do it so well.” Claudia ran her hands through her hair. “Is this some kind of a trick question? It’s obvious why the modulator’s an artefact. It shoots freakin’ sound waves full of brain-fry.”

 

“That makes it a weapon.” Artie rubbed the bridge of his nose. “It doesn’t make it an artefact. There must be a million ice-picks in this world, but there’s a reason why the only ice-pick _here_ is the one that stove in Trotsky’s skull.”

 

“The story?”

 

“The story.” Artie sighed. “Once there lived a young woman so achingly smart that she built tech which shouldn’t exist from plans which didn’t work, just to save someone that she loved.”

 

“What... what happened?”

 

“That loved one was the tech’s first target.”

 

“I see.” Claudia’s voice sounded smaller than usual, and more subdued. “Why did you really bring me here, Artie?”

 

“Because the Warehouse holds something that whispers to every one of our weaknesses. Pete’s. Myka’s. Yours. Mine. The particular stories each of us might spawn. Of all the wonders and horrors that we guard here, this is the one that _you_ must never touch. Do you understand?”

 

Claudia looked at Artie’s face, and nodded.

 

“Good.” Artie levered himself to his feet, and headed back down the aisle. “I wouldn’t recommend trying on the greatcoat, either.”

 

2\. London (2011)

 

The best intel from Whitehall is _not_ exchanged while feeding ducks in the Serpentine , whatever spy romances would have you believe. Ducks had been known to feed James Peregrine Lester – usually with the addition of cranberry sauce – but he had never had any desire to return the compliment. No; the best intel is exchanged over brandy at the Athenaeum, or in the Crush Room at Covent Garden, or in the cloistered hush of expensive cars. It was half-way through a so-so performance of _Rigoletto_ , and not beside the Serpentine, that Lester learned how the hope of humanity had slipped through HMG’s fingers. Which at least spared him the urge to jump in the lake.

 

The Future Predators were well on their way to becoming Present Predators. More of them hoved into view every day. Lester did not know whether some lunatic had finally learned how to breed the wretched things, or whether he had a trans-temporal invasion on his hands. Perhaps they were swarming out of the future they had conquered in order to conquer it. (This sort of scenario would give Lester headaches, if he did not pay Connor Temple to have them for him.) And their only reliable weakness was focussed sound, which would be great, if anyone had ever worked out how to construct the right sort of sonic weapon.

 

Awaiting the inevitable outbreak of _Bella figlia dell’amore_ with beleaguered calm, Lester discovered that someone had.

 

A particularly comedic branch of the U. N. had even, it seemed, managed to confiscate the prototype. Then threwaway the prototype. And then threw away the blue-prints. And then, with the military’s impeccable zeal, threw away the blue-printer. The human race had probably been doomed by one man’s desire to clear his In-Tray.

 

James Lester thought this bloody typical.

 

3\. The Citadel, Gallifrey (Neither Here Nor There).

 

“It’s a screwdriver.”

 

“I can see that.”

 

“A _sonic_ screwdriver.”

 

“Right...”

 

“You’re just annoyed that you didn’t think of making one first.”

 

“I’m annoyed that you didn’t follow the prompts. There’s no point playing Fan Tech if you don’t follow the prompts.”

 

“I did so follow the prompts...”

 

“The prompts were ‘Tool’ and ‘21st Century Terran’. So your new piece of Fan Tech is OOC. There is no way that that bunch of apes had a handle on the principles of applied sonic engineering by their Twenty-First Century.”

 

“Canon refutes you, my friend.” Images snapped into view as Theta gestured. “See?”

 

“Hmmm. One of them works out the principles a hundred years before the rest of them catch on, and that lets you smuggle in sonic tech as Twenty-First Century canon? You’re sneaky, Theta. Underhand. I like it.”

 

Theta Sigma grinned.

 

“What a clever little ape she must have been. Did you inspect the rest of her time-stream?”

 

Theta looked puzzled. “The Orax wouldn’t give me access to some of it. Kept sounding a Paradox Alert. I can’t imagine why.”

 

“All those pointless rules and regulations. Things will be different when we’re in charge.”

 

“Amen to that. The screwdriver’s pretty cool, though, isn’t it?”

 

“It is. But it would have been much, much cooler with lasers.”

 

4\. Los Angeles (2019).

 

There’s a train of thought, that chugs along every so often. When Topher manages to jump on it, he loves the view. It shows him that the world outside can’t be real. It must be just a product of his imagination.

 

(Of course, if the world outside is real, it is _still_ a product of Topher’s imagination. He rubs the heels of his hands into his eyes, as hard as ever he can, until that thought goes away.)

 

The route of the train goes like this:

 

To weaponize the Signal would need a sonic modulator of unprecedented capacity and projective power. Rossum has poured millions into the search for that, with no success. Even to thinkof making one, you would have to find someone who could play with physics like Topher used to play with neuroscience, and get him to construct it for you.

 

Physics!Topher? Plausible? I don’t think so.

 

So, of course, the last couple of years couldn’t have happened. Nine-tenths of humanity couldn’t have been wiped like a blank (if blood-stained) slate. Topher has clearly just fallen asleep on The Chair, or something, and Ivy has tried to Imprint him for a prank. It all unravels so beautifully, if you only think about it. Because no one could have built that sonic modulator.

 

Except that someone could.

 

Except that someone did.

 

(The train crashes into the buffers. Topher drags himself from the wreckage, stunned and bleeding. Again.)

 

Some might think it a consolation, of sorts, that responsibility for having the brain that broke the world is not Topher’s alone. People say (or did, while people were by and large still people) that misery loves company.

 

Topher knows what he knows. He knows that that saying is wrong.

 

5\. Cardiff (2008).

 

“How long before you can get us inside, Tosh?” Gwen asked.

 

Tosh scratched her head. “The Blackguards of the Weeping Nebula know their tech.”

 

“But they don’t know you. Three minutes?”

 

“Two. Tops.”

 

“Fantastic. There’s no way they can have got bored with killing Jack yet.”

 

Tosh nodded. “We just need to sneak in before they start subjecting Ianto to their nameless and probably non-dry-cleanable lusts.”

 

“Agreed. God, I hate hostage situations.” Gwen watched as Tosh played that tricorder-thingy across the obelisk’s door. “Where didyou get that gadget, by the way? I’ve been meaning to ask for ages.”

 

“I invented it. It’s founded on the sonic tech I had to develop, before...”

 

“... before UNIT?” Gwen saw Tosh hunch her shoulders, just a little. “Don’t talk about it if you don’t want to, sweetheart.”

 

Tosh’s back straightened. “I do. The sonic modulator was a weapon. For a long time after Jack saved me, I was obsessed with it. I kept tweaking the parameters, trying to work out how to make it deliver the maximum amount of pain.”

 

“Why?”

 

“Because I was always hoping that one day I would get reacquainted with the people who did that to my mother and me, and be able to show them what it felt like.”

 

Gwen watched her friend’s delicate fingers moving across the console, and shivered. “But that thing you’re holding now isn’t a weapon.”

 

“No. I met someone. It changed me.”

 

“Someone in a leather jacket, perhaps?”

 

Tosh started. Gwen smiled. “Give me some credit, Tosh love. I may be as daft as a brush, but I’m not oblivious. How did meeting him change you, then?”

 

“I saw what he could do with his mind. And I didn’t want to use mine to make weapons anymore.”

 

“Good for him. Violence rarely solves anything.”

 

“You know, Gwen, that sounds a little ironic coming from a woman who is about to address offences against seven separate Conventions of the Shadow Proclamation, using confiscated Quantum Pulse Pistols for postage.”

 

“I didn’t say it _never_ solves anything. And we world-savers don’t have time to be ironic, Tosh. We should leave that to Alanis Morissette.” Gwen hefted her pistols, and peered at the obelisk door. “So... that was when you started turning the modulator into your gizmo, then.”

 

“Yes. It took years for me to perfect the device, but it was worth every second. I didn’t want to kill, or wound, or maim. I just wanted to be very good...”

 

The obelisk beeped, and slid open. Tosh beamed.

 

“... at opening doors. After you.”

 

FINIS


End file.
